


To Boldly Go

by MocheGoche



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU, At least I think its funny, Crossover, Fluff, Humor, Multi, Star Trek - Freeform, Vulcan!Levi, Vulcan!Mikasa, please don't take this too seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-03
Packaged: 2018-02-19 16:22:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2394968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MocheGoche/pseuds/MocheGoche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain Levi and First Officer Eren Jaeger of the Starship Enterprise set off on a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. </p>
<p>“Captain’s log, Star date 16396.4: My first officer is a little shit.” </p>
<p>Captain Levi's crew is infected with a toxin that effects the host in a similar manner to high blood alcohol levels, which can be spread by touch.  Can Cheif Medical Officer Kirstein and Nurse Bodt find a cure before the entire ship is infected? </p>
<p>Yeahhh I'm sorry I'm an old fart who started shipping with Spirk and I wanted to pay some homage to Star Trek.  Also I thought the snk gang would look adorable in the uniforms.  Also, I didn't pick their positions based of the TOS characters, like Levi is not going to be Kirk-like and Eren will not suddenly have amazing control over his emotions just because he's first officer.  It will be loosely based off of the Original Series episode "The Naked Time" so if you've never seen TOS and are interested go watch that please.</p>
<p>Also I was originally not going to specifically put any pairings in this but then they just.... happened.... So I apologize.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Boldly Go

My fic has ART!! Life goal accomplished I am insanely happy.

<http://moist-rosebud.tumblr.com/post/99352986792/art-dump-and-finished-piece-i-did-while-reading>

<http://a-puzzling-development.tumblr.com/post/128859508058/captain-levi-and-first-officer-eren-jaeger-from>

Moist-rosebud and a-puzzling-development and both awesome artists and they made me smile so much!

 

 

Anywayss... in case anyone cares, I’m going to spell out everyone’s positions aboard the ship.

**Bridge Crew:**

Captain – Levi

(XO)First Officer – Eren

Communications Officer – Armin

Pilots – Ymir and Christa

**Security:**

Chief Security Officer – Mikasa

Other Security Officers – Reiner, Bertholt, Annie

**Engineering:**

Chief Engineers – Connie and Sasha

**Medical:**

CMO (Chief Medical Officer) – Jean

Head Nurse – Marco

 

Also, in my story, Levi is a Vulcan, but he was orphaned and raised by Klingons until he joined Starfleet, which is why he isn’t super Vulcan-y and pretty rude.  Mikasa is also Vulcan but was raised by humans (Eren’s family) on earth.

Annnnd that’s everyone(I think)!

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its 5-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

 “Captain’s log, Star date 16396.4: My first officer is a little shit.”

Levi smirked slightly, leaning back in the Captain’s chair.  Eren had to screen all of the Captain’s recordings before sending them off to command, so he figured he’d leave the editing up to his XO after he got back from his away mission.  He heard Armin sigh from his communications post and decided to continue with his actual report.

“Our position: Orbiting Sina 2000.  Entire planet is frozen over due to the death of this system’s sun, and the gravitational pull is beginning to tear the planet apart.  Our mission: to fetch the scientific party stationed there and observe the disintegration of the planet.” 

He cut the recording and turned around to look at Lieutenant Arlert. 

“Problem?”

“No sir!” The blond communications officer twitched a little bit in his chair.  Although he was not the strongest willed of Levi’s bridge crew, the kid was smart and spoke like 50 languages.   Armin was also one of the few male officers that chose to wear the dress and tights option Starfleet uniform as opposed to the shirt and slacks, but that wasn’t particularly remarkable.  Nurse Bodt from medical had the same preference.

“Arlert, keep me updated on Mr. Jaeger’s progress planet-side.” 

“Yes, Captain.”

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Down on the planet, Eren and an away team of six officers were beamed inside the scientific compound to pick up the humans that had been stationed there.  However, when they arrived, there was no one to greet them.  The interior of the research station was completely incased in ice.  Eren stepped off the transporter pad, plucking uncomfortably in his orange protective suit.  He wished the Captain didn’t make them wear these every single time they beamed down to an unscanned location, but better safe than sorry.  Better safe _and_ itchy, apparently. 

Thomas stepped out into the transporter room of the station holding his tricorder in front of himself, twiddling some knobs. 

_Beep blip boop beep beeeep,_ it replied cheerfully.

“There are no signs of life showing in the entire station, aside from us.”  He said, glancing down at the tricorder display. 

“It looks like we didn’t get here in time.” Eren pulled out his communicator and flipped it open. 

“First officer to ship.” Onboard the ship, Armin tapped his earpiece.

“Enterprise to Mr. Jaeger.”

“Hi, Officer Arlert. Can you transfer me to the Captain?”  The communications officer nodded towards Levi, who punched a button on his console.

“Levi here, what’s going on?”

“Captain, we arrived on the planet and have taken some cursory readings.  It appears that there was a malfunction with the life support systems.  There are no surviving life forms in the research center.”

Levi frowned, drumming his fingers against the dashboard.  “They didn’t send any reports concerning a life support problem.  Is it possible that their communications also went down?”

“Possibly.”

“Okay then.  Take your team around and look for bodies, then go to the control room and try to figure out what happened to their life support. “

“Yup, will do.”  Levi’s eyebrow rose, and his fingers stilled.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, uh, sorry.  I meant yes, _Sir_.” Armin, still listening in to the communication, couldn’t prevent his lips twitching upwards for a fraction of a second.  Levi glared at him.  Goddamn cadets.

“I see.  Report back in one hour, Mr. Jaeger.”

“First Officer out.”  Eren hung up, and then sheepishly turned to the rest of the away team. 

“Alright everyone, Squad A will take the right half of the building and Squad B will take the left.  Report your findings directly to me.”

Eren and Thomas headed to the main control center of the building. 

There were bodies.  Many bodies. 

The majority of the control room crew was still in the room.  Most of them were still at their posts, frozen and bent over on the consoles. 

“My god.” Thomas said.  “Did it happen so fast they couldn’t leave?”

Eren shook his head. 

“I’ll have to check with Armin, but I don’t think that’s even possible.  This place is insulated enough that even if they completely lost power they would still have air and a maintained temperature for at least ten hours.” 

“So what you’re saying is, they chose to stay here?” Thomas looked around.  “Why would they willingly do that?”  He stopped at a table.  Two corpses had a game of poker laid out between them, cards clutched in frozen fingers. 

“They were gambling when they died?” The security officer blinked away a drop of sweat that had passed down his face despite the cold. 

Eren went over to the main console and was inspecting the switches.  He flipped a couple of them, then threw a large breaker and the lights in the room started back up.  He stared at the board, then looked up at Thomas.

“There’s nothing wrong with the life support system,” he said.  “Somebody just shut it off.” 

Thomas looked a little green. 

“They just shut it off? Why would they do that?” 

Eren shook his head slowly. “I literally have no idea.  I need to go talk to Armin and the Captain.” 

Turning to the door and pulling out his communicator, Eren threw back over his shoulder, “Finish up cataloging all the victims in here and then come meet me back at the transporter room.”

Left alone in the room of bodies, Thomas started sweating even more in the quiet.  It was creepy, he thought, the way everyone had just laid down and let themselves die.  Really creepy.  How could this happen to someone? And these freaking suits were so stifling, why did they have to wear them again? Eren fixed the life support systems, and the air was breathable to begin with, just cold. 

Thomas slowly ( _no Thomas don’t do it!_ ) pulled off one of his gloves and reached up under his mask to wipe off his sweating face.  He placed his ungloved hand on the table, leaning against it for a minute to gather his thoughts (and his nerve) before fixing his suit, putting his glove back on, and getting back to his task.  He wrote down the location and position of each body, along with anything notable about what they appeared to be doing when they died. 

Then, he left the room as quickly as he could, anxious to rejoin the living. 

_Weird narrator voice: At this point it is important to note that although Thomas was wearing his protective radiation suit, underneath of that suit he was unfortunate enough to be wearing a red uniform.  Now, Thomas is completely unaware of this, but in the history of all space explorations, officers wearing red uniforms had a 357.9% higher death rate than officers wearing any other color.  No one has yet to figure out why.  Anyways, back to the story._

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back on board the Enterprise, Levi was ~~anxiously~~ stoically (totally _not_ anxiously) awaiting the return of his first officer.  The reports coming back from the planet were alarming, to say the least.  According to Eren, the entire population had turned off their life support and then just sat around doing various strange things until they died.  There were two people in a shower, a group of people frozen in the middle of what looked like a game of naked beer pong, and the stories just got stranger from there. 

He decided to get everyone together to discuss the situation at hand, as soon as Eren (and the rest of the away team, don’t forget about them, _Captain_ ) returned to the ship.  The planet in question was actually going to self-implode in less than two days, so they couldn’t spend a ton of time hanging around and trying to figure out what happened to the people on the station.  Frankly, Levi didn’t really care as long as his crew was safe.  His crew was what was important. 

Armin’s console lit up. He twirled some knobs before turning to face Levi. “Captain, away team has beamed back aboard safely.”

Levi huffed and jumped out of his chair. 

“Good, get their asses decontaminated and call the senior staff together into conference room Epsilon.”

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, “senior staff” was a bit of a misnomer on this ship.  Somehow Levi had gotten saddled Captaining a five year mission with a bunch of fresh-out-of-training cadets as his higher ranking officers.  Supposedly, these were the cream-of-the-crop cadets and that’s why they had been selected, but still.  Brats, all of them.  They were eager and smart but their lack of experience made them stupid sometimes. 

Five minutes later, Levi was standing at the head of a table waiting for Eren to finish decontaminating, rubbing his forehead while trying to ignore the argument currently going on between his two chief engineers.  Lt. Springer was antagonizing Lt. Brause about their previous mission.

“I still can’t believe it took you two _hours_ to convert that binary sequence out.” Connie smirked as Sasha got steadily more upset.

“We never had to do that by hand before! It’s not my fault that the computers went down!”

“That’s like first semester stuff.  Digital logic? It’s like the _easiest thing we do._ ”

“I was flustered! Stop bullying me about it!”  Sasha grabbed the front of Connie’s shirt in distress, and for some reason Connie started snickering to himself.  He grinned wickedly at her, pausing for dramatic effect. 

“Do you mean… stop… _Boolean_ you about it?” Sasha stared at Connie nonplussed for a couple of seconds. He stared at her, then both of them started laughing hysterically. 

Levi internally groaned.  _Engineers._  Most of the room groaned out loud, but it was drowned out by giggles as Connie and Sasha collapsed against each other.  Armin looked particularly pained.

“Connie, how long have you been waiting to make that pun?”  Jean asked. 

Connie could barely respond, he was still laughing too hard. 

“ _Years_.”  Jean made a disparaging noise and the entire room stared warily as the two engineers struggled to bring themselves back under control. 

“That was the literally the dumbest joke I’ve ever heard.” Ymir said.  The rest of the group nodded in agreement.  Connie and Sasha looked extremely offended. 

“That was literally the best thing Connie has ever said.” Sasha shot back. 

“Only because most of the stuff he says is even dumber than that.”

“I HAVE A MASTERS IN ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING!”  Connie shouted.  He looked at Marco pleadingly.  “Marco, c’mon man back me up. That was a brilliant joke!”

Nurse Bodt had been adjusting his blue flower headband.  When everyone turned to him expectantly, he looked up nervously, hands fiddling with the corner of his skirt. 

“I uhh… I don’t know what B-boolean means?”  Everyone laughed.

“Hey, lay off, Marco!” Jean said. Everyone was still laughing when Eren and Thomas opened the door and walked in. 

“ _Finally_ , thank the fucking galaxy.” Levi said.  The newcomers sat down.

“What’d I miss?” Eren asked. 

“Nothing remotely worth repeating.” The Captain said with a glare.  “Now, if you’re all done being idiots, we have some serious stuff to figure out.” 

Everyone quieted down, and even Connie and Sasha managed to look serious.  Levi nodded at Eren, who stood up, and slotted a chip into the computer.  A slideshow of bizarre pictures started to flash across the projector, and Eren started to talk.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“… …. What the fuck.” 

This was Jean’s eloquent response to Eren’s summarization of the away mission.  Levi personally agreed with it but would not be admitting that out loud. 

“So they just turned off the power, turned into drunken idiots, and sat around until they died?”

“Apparently.”  Eren frowned.  “I have no idea what could have happened.”  The first officer looked not-so-conspicuously at Armin.  The blond boy scratched his head.  Levi leaned forward, waiting, and Armin started to speak.

“Well, I have a theory…” _Oh thank the galaxy we are saved_.  Armin looked at Levi for permission to speak.  Levi rolled his eyes, wondering how someone could be that smart but still be self-conscious giving their opinions. 

“Alright Arlert, give us what you’ve got.”

“Well, it seems like there were signs of a few of the inhabitants of the science station attempting to save everyone, only to give up.  There’s one person here…”  Armin paused to flip through the slideshow until he found the picture he wanted.  “…at the communication station.  Based on the buttons that were had been pressed, and the layout of the switches, he was actually trying to send out an SOS but couldn’t because someone else had disconnected the antennas in the telecom room.  Eventually it looks like he stopped trying to save everyone and started painting smiley faces on the console.  What does this tell us?”  Armin looked expectantly around at blank faces.  Marco looked like he might say something but stopped, so Armin sighed and continued. 

“It tells us that he was still aware and sane for a period of time when others were not.  It also tells us at some point he became afflicted with the same sort of insanity.” 

Armin didn’t even bother waiting to see if someone was catching on this time.

“The people on the science station were infected with some sort of contagious disease that caused their behavior.    It looks like the effects were actually similar to high blood alcohol levels, which is interesting.  It started with only a few members of the population, but then spread to the entire station,” he completed confidently, but then deflated a bit. 

“A-at least, that’s what I think probably happened.” 

Levi nodded.  It was good enough for him. 

“Okay everyone, here’s what we’re going to do.  Doctor, take the samples that were collected from the site and analyze them to see if we can isolate the disease or toxin that caused the effects.”

Jean nodded, and the Captain looked around the room.

“And this is a _fantastic_ opportunity to remind everyone that this is why I make you wear those fucking orange suits.  If I didn’t ignore your whining and make you put them on, this crap could be on our ship by now.”

Thomas shifted uncomfortably, and Eren muttered something under his breath.    

“What was that?” Levi said

Eren stiffened and muttered “Nothing.”

Levi, however, didn’t take kindly to snide comments.  He walked over and put his ear towards Eren’s face.

“I said, ‘what was that?’”

Eren spoke up, all but shouting in Levi’s ear.  “I SAID THEY DON’T HAVE TO BE SO ITCHY THOUGH SIR!”

Levi didn’t flinch.  Not at all.  He looked murderously at Eren and said,

“We will have a discussion about your comfort _needs_ later if your constitution is really so delicate that you can’t handle nylon.” 

Eren gulped.  Levi straightened up and turned back to everyone. 

“Dismissed everyone.”  The team got up and started filing out of the room.  Sasha thumped Thomas on the back on her way past. _(dun dun dunn now Sasha’s infected)_

“What’s wrong Thomas? You look a little pale.” She said.

Ymir brushed by them, saying, “He’s just worried that he’s gonna get trounced by Bertl tonight at the match.” 

As a pastime, the crew of the Enterprise had been running wrestling/boxing/MMA matches every week.  That night Thomas was scheduled to face off with Bertholt.  As a rite of passage, everyone got a shitty stage name for their fights.  Bertholt’s was Sweaty Baby.  Charming. 

Thomas glared at Ymir. She chucked him not-so-gently under the chin as she continued with,

“And everyone is going to be there to see it!” before sauntering away. ( _fricking Ymir just infected herself too_ )

Thomas stood there, shaking, until everyone else had left the conference room.  Then he slowly started heading back to his quarters, not noticing when his shoulder hit the doorframe and he stumbled slightly. 

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_In the gym_

“Come on Thomas, you can do it!”

“Thrash him Bertl!”

“He’s bigger but not better Thomas! Get him!”

“KICK HIS PUNY LITTLE ASS BABY!”

That last shout was Reiner, of course. 

Most of the crew was gathered in the gym to watch the weekly match, and Bertholt was waiting to enter the ring.  Thomas, however, was nowhere to be seen. 

“Hey,” Bertholt touched Eren’s arm tentatively,  “Where did Thomas get off to?”

Eren shrugged, looking around a bit.

“He’s only a couple of minutes late, give him some time.  He seemed pretty shaken up after the away mission from today---oh wait, there he is now, holy crap he’s sweatier than you Bertholt! Did he run the whole way here?”

True to Eren’s comment, Thomas was out of breath and dripping as he stepped up next to Bertholt.

“A-are you okay?” The taller man looked concerned.  “Thomas, we don’t have to do this today if you’re not feeling well.”

“No!” Thomas shook his head. “I’m just feeling… edgy… A nice workout will be just the thing to take the edge off.”  He jumped up and down, amping himself up.  Bertholt eyed him warily.

“Okay…”  They both stepped out into the ring and took their starting positions. 

As soon as the fight started it was pretty clear that Thomas was in no shape to be boxing.  He took wild swings and left himself wide open, but when Bertholt retaliated with hits Thomas just kept going.  Eventually Bertholt could tell that he was doing some serious damage to Thomas and tried to call an end to the fight, but Thomas wasn’t having it. 

“No! I can do this! Keep coming on, you bastard!”  Thomas continued to swing at Bertholt, staggering forward.  Bertholt easily blocked the punches, but he didn’t want to continue.  Thomas needed serious medical attention, wobbling and dripping with blood and sweat.  There was only one thing to do, and  Bertholt conceded with grace, raising his arms up above his head.

“I surrender--!” Just as the words came out Thomas socked him hard across the face. 

“WHAT THE FUCK THOMAS!” Reiner roared, jumping up onto the stage to grab his boyf--- to grab his friend.  He leaned in, examining Bertholt’s face, because turning to glare at Thomas. 

“What is wrong with you?? He surrendered, you idiot!” 

Thomas was staring at the ground, arms still up in a sloppy boxing stance, muttering to himself.

“I sure… showed… him…” He laughed, looked over at Bertholt and Reiner, and then abruptly collapsed to the floor. 

“Thomas!” Bertholt reached over to his fallen opponent, and then looked around the room.  “Somebody get Nurse Bodt!”

Marco was already running up from the back of the crowd.  He dropped down in front of Thomas, to check his pulse then glanced over at the other two officers in the ring.

“We need to get him down to medical.  Reiner, can you get Officer Hoover down by yourself?”  Reiner nodded.  “Okay, I’ll take care of Thomas.” 

Without another word, Marco scooped Thomas up and carried him bridal style out of the gym, with Reiner and Bertholt following.  ( _Crap, now its got Marco too! Bertholt is like super ultra infected.  Surprise surprise he also infected Reiner)_

A few minutes later the doors to sickbay swooshed open.  Doctor Kirstein looked up, jaw falling open slightly at the spectacle in front of him.  Nurse Bodt was holding an unconscious and bloody Thomas, slightly out of breath and panting.  One side of his skirt had caught on Thomas’ boot and flipped up, and the blue flower on his head was lopsided.  He looked at Jean anxiously, and the CMO shook himself. 

“Put him on bed 2.” He said, striding over to help Marco lift their passed-out friend.  Marco pressed his hand up to Thomas’ forehead while Jean donned a pair of gloves.  Reiner and Bertholt arrived as he was settling Thomas down and pulling out his tricorder.  He paused to asses Bertholt’s bloody nose. 

“What the fuck happened??” Jean asked.

Reiner shrugged and set his friend down onto the bed next to Thomas. 

“We don’t really know.  Thomas went ape-shit during the sparring match today and then just collapsed after sucker punching Bertl.”  Jean frowned and turned to Marco.

“Nurse Bodt, look after Officer Hoover, I’ll see what I can do for Thomas.”

Jean leaned over Thomas, his hypo whirring and taking readings, and his face darkened in alarm. 

“That can’t be right. Nurse! I need you over here!” Marco was at his side instantaneously.

“I need 30ccs of cuardrazine.”  The Doctor said, holding out his left hand without looking.  Marco placed the medicine in his waiting fingers and watched the life signs above the bed as Jean administered it. 

“He’s crashing!” Marco said. 

“He can’t be crashing! He’s hardly injured at all!”  Jean grabbed the heart kit and flipped the switch to ON.  “Charging.”

“Clear.” Jean placed the nodes on Thomas’s chest and zapped him. Both doctor and nurse looked up to the screen expectantly.  Nothing.

“Clear.” Still nothing. 

“Clear.”  Marco and Jean looked desperately at the screen.  Nothing.  They look at each other and Jean nodded curtly. 

“Call it.”  He turned away from the scene, stripped off his gloves, and grabbed the communicator sitting on his desk.  Flipping it open, he twirled the knob.

“Sickbay to bridge.  I need the Captain down here right now.  We’ve lost an officer.”

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I just don’t understand!” Jean reached the wall and turned to continue his pacing in the opposite direction, back towards Levi and Eren on the other end of the room. Thomas’ body had been covered with a black sheet. 

“Jean, there was nothing you could do.”  Nurse Bodt followed the CMO with his eyes, twisting his hands together anxiously.  Bertholt and Reiner sat quietly in the corner, Bertholt’s bloody nose forgotten for the moment.  Jean ran his fingers through his hair roughly.

“I’ve lost people before, but not like this.”  He tugged on the ends of his hair.  “There is no medical reason why Thomas should be dead.  He had a bloody nose, and was a little dehydrated but other than that he was in perfect health!” Levi pushed off of the desk he had been leaning against and intercepted Jean’s pacing. 

“You said he was acting strangely before he collapsed, correct?” The CMO nodded distractedly, turning away from Levi.  He was met by Eren on his other side, and the XO grabbed Jean by the shoulders and shaking him.

“Jean, focus!”

Jean jerked away from Eren but his expression cleared a bit.  He looked back at Levi, then toward Reiner and Bertholt.

“Yeah, you guys said he was acting crazy, sweating and being extremely aggressive.”  Eren nodded.

“He was really shaken up by what happened down on the planet.  He hasn’t been acting like himself since we came back.” 

“But he couldn’t be stressed out to the point that a punch in the face killed him, could he?”

Bertholt looked terrified.

“What if I killed him?” He whispered to Reiner, who rubbed his back comfortingly. 

“It wasn’t your fault.  You tried to stop the fight.”

Levi ran his hand across his face, thinking.

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Meanwhile, on the bridge….._

“Ymir, stop it!”  Christa leans away from the other pilot.  “What are you doing?”

Ymir put her fingers on Christa’s wrist, tracing circles on the back of her hand.  “I’m bored.”

Christa shook off her friend. 

“We’re on duty, Ymir.” 

The freckled girl smirked, looking around. 

“I don’t see the Captain anywhere, do you?”  She pulled back from Christa, rubbing her hands together unconsciously. 

“I’m feeling… antsy…”  she said.  “I think I’m gonna go take a walk somewhere.” 

Christa stared at her. 

“Ymir. _We’re on duty_.” 

Ymir sighed, rolling her eyes.

“Christa, the ship is on autopilot, and our course is set in for the next eight hours.  We are literally doing nothing but staring at the screen.  I don’t need to be here.”  She stood up, leaning over the small blond girl. 

“And I think you should come with me.”  She whispered the last part into Christa’s ear, then sauntered away, not waiting to see if the blond girl did in fact follow her. 

“Ymir!” Christa hissed, not really willing to leave her station to go chasing after a crazy Ymir.  Ymir wasn’t listening and walked to the elevator. 

Christa frowned, quickly setting the controls completely to autopilot, then ran out of the bridge to chase her friend.  When she got to the elevator though, Ymir was already gone. 

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

_Down in Engineering_

Connie and Sasha were working on some routine maintenance checks to keep the Enterprise running smoothly.  Sasha was replacing some compressor coils, while Connie cleaned and oiled the metal parts of the control room.  Connie hummed softly to the ship while he worked. 

“Shiny ship, you’re such a pretty ship aren’t you?” He cooed at the metal workings.  “We have to take good care of you, cause you take such good care of us!” 

He glanced over at Sasha, who had been acting kind of weird since the conference room.  She was taking an especially long time in reinstalling the new coils, and she was continuously rubbing her hands on her skirt. 

“Sash, are you doing okay?”  He asked. 

“What?”  She wasn’t looking at him. 

“I said, are you okay?”

Sasha nodded distractedly. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  She was turning the old compressor coil over in her hands. “What do you want me to do with the old coils?” 

“Well, we don’t have any spares right now so hang onto them.  The new coils are a different manufacturer than we normally get.  If something happens with them we’ll be S.O.L.  The old coils are better than nothing.”

“Oooh okay.”  Her voice was fuzzy.  “They just look so… pretty… The dust is almost like cinnamon.” 

She turned to face Connie and he froze.  He eyes were glazed over and there was a tiny patch of drool at the corner of her mouth. He knew that look.  It was not a good look.  He tried to think backwards and came to a horrifying conclusion.  Sasha had been so busy/distracted that day that she had missed lunch and dinner. 

“Sash… Sash…”  He started walking over to her slowly with his hands stretched outward.  She smiled balefully at him, plopping down on the floor with the coils cradled in her hands.  She sniffed it. 

“Mmmmm cinnamon.”  She closed her eyes and tilted her head backwards.  Connie reached forward and carefully took the compression coil out of her hands, setting it down on the floor out of her reach. 

“Sasha.  Look at me,” he instructed.  She met his eyes and he continued speaking softly, trying very hard to not set her off.  He knew if he so much as mentioned the “f” word all hell would break loose.  His only chance was to get her something to eat before she lost it. 

“Listen,” he said. “I’m going to leave for a minute, but I’ll be back really soon.  Just… just sit here, and don’t move until I get back, okay?”

She nodded vaguely, glancing over at the coil on the ground and licking her lips. 

“Sash!” She looked back at him.  “Can you do that? Just sit here and don’t move until I get back.”  He got up and backed away slowly, before turning and running towards the lift.  As soon as the doors shut, his calm demeanor vanished. 

“GET ME TO THE CAFETERIA NOW!” He shouted at the computer. 

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in sickbay, Levi was trying to fend off the aggressive onset of a headache.  He spoke with his eyes shut and his fingers pressed into the bridge of his nose.  Jean was pulling on a fresh pair of gloves.

“Doctor, analyze samples from Thomas’ blood and see if you can get any answers.  Mr. Jaeger and I are going back to the bridge, and I need to make an announcement about Thomas’ death to the ship. Lieutenant Hoover, are you fit for duty?” 

Marco was just finishing up taking care of Bertholt’s nose.  The tall man nodded. 

“Yes Captain.”

“Okay, Hoover and Braun, as long as you are up for it, return to normal duties.  Doctor, keep us posted if you find anything.” 

Jean nodded, placing his right hand over his heart and left behind him in a quick salute.  “Yes, Sir.”

Levi shared a glance with Eren. Then both men walked out of sickbay, with Reiner and a no longer bloody Bertholt in tow.  Jean watched them go, then sighed and cracked his knuckles, looking over at Marco. 

“Alright, we need to get this figured out.” 

Marco had sat down on the side of the bed, wiping his hands compulsively on the front of his uniform.  He nodded jerkily, and there were tears in his eyes when he looked up.  Jean regarded him carefully, and noticed that there were little spatters of blood all over the nurse’s skirt.  He softened his voice. 

“Hey, why don’t you go back to your quarters, take a few minutes to calm down and change into a clean uniform?” 

Marco sniffed and smiled a little.  “Thanks, Jean.  I’ll be back soon and then we can figure this out!”  He wiped at his face, then twisted his hands together again.  “Right?” He said hopefully.

Jean smiled.

“Right.  Now, go get changed.  We’ll deal with this when you get back.”  Marco stood up and was turning to leave when Jean saw something on the floor. 

“Wait!” Jean said, running forward and picking up the little blue headband on the floor.  He stood up with the hair accessory clutched in both hands and held it out to Marco. 

“H-here. You dropped this.”  Marco smiled, tilting his head down and letting Jean affix the flower back on his head. Jean ruffled his hair around the headband fondly.

“Thanks.” Marco said softly.  “Its my second favorite headband.”  Jean laughed, trying to lighten the mood.

“What’s your first favorite?”

Marco blushed for some reason.

“Uhhh, I’ll show you sometime.”  He looked at Jean’s arm, and the CMO realized his gloved hand was still resting on the side of Marco’s face.  He dropped it quickly. 

“Sorry,” he said, his ears turning pink.  Marco shook his head, lips turning upward. His voice was low when he spoke. 

“It’s completely alright, _doctor_.” With that the nurse turned and left sickbay.  Jean stared blankly after him.

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Outside of sickbay_

Levi and Eren were passing by the cafeteria on their way to the lift.  Out of the corner of his eye, Levi saw a small mountain of packages on a cart barreling towards them from inside the cafeteria.  He grabbed Eren’s arm and yanked the first officer backwards, which left him in the path of the cart.  The Captain and cart collided, slamming Levi back against the wall and scattering parcels everywhere. 

“Ah shit, I’m sorry---!”  Connie, who had been pushing the cart, went white when he saw who he had collided with. 

“Captain!” He glanced around nervously, then started racing around picking up the various boxes that had fallen everywhere. 

Levi glared, brushing himself off and standing up, picking up one of the boxes on his way.  He looked at the label, and it read _dehydrated French fries_. All of the boxes were from the cafeteria, which meant that this was… All food.   

“Mr. Springer.”  His voice was cold.  “Stop, and explain.”  

Connie looked pained but kept collecting the food and putting it back on the cart, replying frantically.

“SORRY SIR BUT I NEED TO GET THIS DOWN TO ENGINEERING ASAP.  I REQUEST THAT YOU HELP ME PICK THIS UP SIR!”

Eren looked at the mess. 

“Connie, this is like a weeks’ worth of rations.  What are you doing?? Why are you in such a hurry?”

Connie paused for a second, looking to the first officer for help. 

“SASHA HASN’T EATEN ANYTHING IN EIGHT HOURS.”  Eren paled, and started rushing around to grab the last of the boxes. He snatched the French fries out of the Captain’s hand.

“WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU LET HER GO THAT LONG WITHOUT FOOD!” He yelled at Connie.

“I’VE NEVER HAD TO TELL HER TO EAT BEFORE! SHE’S BEEN ACTING WEIRD ALL DAY.” The engineer yelled back. 

The two finished putting everything back on the cart and Connie raced away without another word, Eren shouting after him. 

“HURRY!”

The lift swished shut, and Eren turned back to Levi warily.  The Captain’s face was blank.

“What the fuck?” Which was clearly the only appropriate comment given what he just witnessed.

Eren winced and sighed. 

“I… I really don’t have a good explanation for that.  I’ve known Sasha for like ten years now.  Just please believe me that Connie was doing the right thing in this situation.” 

“Is she a gremlin? Can’t feed her after midnight?”

“Hah. No probably the opposite.  Always, and I mean always, err on the side of feeding her more.”  Ironically, just as Eren said that, his stomach rumbled.  Levi’s eyes narrowed, and Eren held up his hands innocently.

“I’m not Sasha. Don’t worry, I’m fine.” 

The Captain frowned. 

“When was the last time you ate?” He asked. 

Eren shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

“Alrighty then.”  Levi grabbed Eren’s wrist and dragged him into the cafeteria.

“I’m fine Captain!” Eren protested.

“I’m not having you faint on me because you forgot to eat.  This is a five year mission, Brat, you gotta learn to take care of yourself even when there’s a crisis around.”  Levi marched over to the food replicators and typed in orders for two meals. 

Eren wrinkled his nose. 

“Chicken and broccoli?  I was gonna get a burger and fries.” 

“I know, that’s why I ordered for you.” 

Levi sat down and motioned for Eren to sit across from him, pushing one of the trays over to the boy. 

“Sit and eat. You’ve been running around all day.”

Eren obediently picked up his fork.

“Yes, Captain.”  Levi frowned, pausing with a piece of broccoli halfway to his mouth.

“Eren, I’ve told you before, when we’re not on the bridge or strictly on duty, Levi is fine.” 

Eren’s face flushed a tiny bit.

“Okay L-levi.”

Levi’s face relaxed and he smiled a little bit.  He continued eating until he noticed that Eren was staring at him.

“What, do I have crap on my face?”

“No, sorry Capt--- sorry Levi, I’ve never seen a Vulcan smile before.” 

Levi laughed and smiled wider, just for Eren’s benefit.

“Well I’m not really a Vulcan in anything but blood.”  Eren nodded.  He knew the Captain had been raised on a Klingon colony.

“Yeah, that must’ve been weird when you met other Vulcans.  Klingons are pretty different from humans and Vulcans, aren’t they?”  Eren pushed a piece of chicken around on his plate.

“Sure, but my upbringing made me an ideal candidate for leading this kind of mission.  I am a Vulcan, raised by Klingons, who prefers to spend his time with humans.  The diversity awareness people just about had a heart attack when I applied.” 

“I can imagine.  They really wanted Mikasa too.”  Eren’s adoptive sister, Mikasa, was another orphaned Vulcan.  Eren’s parents took her in and she was raised on earth.  The boy smiled at Levi.

“There’s one thing in common with all of your Vulcans.” 

Levi looked up.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t like to be touched.” 

“Ah.  That’s true.” 

Actually, one of the main reasons Levi liked Eren so much when they first met is that his first officer seemed to know instinctively not to intrude on the Captain’s personal boundaries.  It was probably from growing up with Mikasa, but not all humans knew that Vulcans needed lots of personal space.  Being touch telepaths, any physical contact was uncomfortably intimate to Vulcans.  Handshakes were basically the equivalent of a makeout session.  It made interpersonal relations awkward sometimes. 

“Hang on…” Eren’s forehead wrinkled as he realized something.

“What, Brat?”

“You still hate being touched, I know.”  Eren said slowly. “But you grabbed my arm earlier… You’ve done that before…” Eren looked down at the table, thinking.  He hadn’t actually ever seen Levi touch anyone else.  Vulcan’s don’t like physical contact.  But Levi had…. Huh….

“Are you done?” Levi stood up.  “We need to get back to the bridge.”  Eren looked questioningly at his Captain but also stood up.

“Yes, Captain.” 

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Bertholt and Reiner – Security Wreck Room_

Bertholt and Reiner headed back to the security wreck room to check in with the other officers before they got their assignment for the day.  Most of the officers had heard about the situation with Thomas and Bertholt, so when they arrived, Bertholt and Reiner received sympathetic back pats, handclasps, and hugs. 

_The security faction was a very supportive group.  This also means that pretty much the entirety of the security officers aboard the enterprise had now touched either Bertholt or Reiner.  Oh joy._

Mikasa, head of security, was the only one who didn’t offer physical condolences to the two.  However, she did look them over and quietly told them that she wanted them to take the rest of the day off to go rest. 

Bertholt attempted to protest, saying that his nose felt fine but stopped when Bertholt sneakily ran a finger up his spine. 

“I don’t know, Bertl.”  The large blond officer grinned cheekily and whispered in his ear.  “ _Getting off_ for a day doesn’t sound half bad to me, now does it?” 

Bertholt turned pink and started stuttering in the middle of his explanation to Mikasa about exactly why he was fit for duty.  She rolled her eyes and turned away, leaving Reiner to leave Bertholt out of the room by the hand, laughing manically when most of the room started applauding.  There may or may not have been a few wolf whistles as they left, and Bertholt may or may not have dripped a few drops of sweat on the floor on their way out.  Reiner didn’t seem to mind.   

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Sickbay_

Jean filled up several vials with Thomas’ blood and ran them through the spectrum analyzer.  He also had a few samples of blood from the planet-side victims, and he had a hunch that comparing the two might give him some answers.  He glanced impatiently at the clock.  Marco had been gone for a while, too long to have just changed.  He understood that the nurse needed some time to collect himself, but Jean needed a second opinion on things, and an extra hand to help analyze the samples. 

He was about to ping Marco’s room and see how the brunette was doing when the sickbay doors swished open. 

“Oh, hey Marco I was just about to…” Jean’s mouth stopped working when he actually saw Marco.  “Uh… call you…”

Marco had changed clothing, yes.  But not back into another nurse’s outfit.  No, the freckled man had apparently decided that he wanted to wear the red uniform and skirt.  Jean didn’t even know where Marco could’ve gotten a red woman’s uniform, but there he was wearing one.  And he hadn’t stopped there.  The nurse was wearing thigh high black boots and fishnet tights, winged eyeliner and red lipstick.  And in his hair a black lacey headband covered in little red roses sat, with a black veil that partially covered the left half of Marco’s face. 

“This is my favorite headband,” Marco said.  “I wanted to show you, and as for the rest….” He looked down at himself.  “Well, I had to match.” 

“Marco…!?” Jean would have been embarrassed about how high his voice went, but his mind was on other things at the moment. 

“Call me Nurse.”  Marco said, smiling and stalking forward towards Jean, swaying slightly.

“What?”  Jean squeaked, subconsciously backing away from his friend.  Marco smirked.  _Wait since when does Marco know how to smirk?_

“We’re on duty, aren’t we?  You should call me Nurse.”  He purred.  Jean backed up to his desk and quickly ran around to the other side of it, putting a barrier between him and his… friend…

Undeterred, Marco simply got up on the desk and started crawling towards Jean instead.  As if that was completely normal. 

“Is there something wrong, _Doctor_?” Marco put emphasis on the last word, continuing his advance. 

Jean’s mouth went dry, and he tried to focus on a particular freckle on Marco’s face instead of on the rest of his ensemble.  It wasn’t helping things much.  He backed up as far as he could against the wall and away from the bed.  Now he was trapped.  Marco reached the end of the desk and pulled his leg forward, preparing to slide off the desk and corned Jean further. 

His heel snagged on the drawer of the desk and Marco pitched forward, face first, into the ground, with a loud and very unsexy “oomph”

“Marco!” Jean rushed forward, catching his friend right before he hit the floor. “Oh shit, are you okay? Fuck.  Marco?”  He peered closely at the nurse, awkwardness forgotten as concern overtook him.  Marco buried his face against Jean’s shirt. 

“hm fnee” He said. 

“Huh?”  Jean pried Marco off of him, leaning away and avoiding letting Marco touch his skin.  He was wearing gloves and long sleeves, so he was safe thus far. 

“I’m fine.” Marco mumbled, turning away from Jean.  His particular… uhh… _mood_ seemed to have vanished.

“Marco! Focus!” Jean shook his friend a little.  “How do you feel?”

Marco smiled.  “I feel… Great!” he said, then tilted a little bit off to the side. Jean propped him upright as best he could, and examined Marco’s face, trying to gauge his level of awareness.

“Marco, I need to keep working.  Do you think you can help me?”

Marco nodded quickly. 

“I want to help!” he tried to get up and slipped again.  Jean steadied him, still being careful to avoid touching his actual skin.  Marco poked his sleeve and giggled. 

“Jean?”

_Well at least he had dropped the Doctor thing_ , Jean thought.

“Yes Marco?”

“Can I sit on your lap while you work?”  Marco looked at Jean with wide, round eyes, a complete reverse from his sultry demeanor earlier, and the doctor sighed.  

“Okay Marco, you can sit on my lap.  Now, let’s start analyzing these samples and get you cured.”

“Cured? What’s wrong with me?” Marco asked.  Jean patted him. 

“Let’s just say you’re not normally this touchy feely.”

“Yes I am!” Marco stated adamantly, pouting.  “I’m really cuddly!”

Jean couldn’t help but laugh. 

“I guess you are.  The tights are a surprise though.  And the lipstick.”  Marco brightened up.

“Do you like my headband?”

Jean smiled, shifting the freckled baby over to onto his right knee.

“Yes, I do.  Now, I really _really_ have to work.” 

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Annddd back to poor Connie and his food cart adventures_

Connie raced into the open lift doors, not noticing that the elevator was already occupied.

CRASH! His cart claimed a second victim.  Connie yelped in alarm and pulled his cart away, revealing a very disheveled Christa. 

“OMG I’m so sorry Christa!!” He yelled, picking up the packages again.  Christa quickly smiled brightly despite her injuries.

“Don’t worry about me, I was just looking for Ymir!”  She started helping him pick of the packages while he apologized again, and the lift started moving back down to engineering. 

“I’m really really sorry, are you going to be okay? Sasha hasn’t eaten anything for awhile so I’m kinda freaking out.”

Christa’s eyes widened a little bit, then she made herself beam kindness as much as she could.

“Oh, I’ll help you! Don’t worry I will always help you!” 

Connie smiled.

“Thanks Christa, you’re the best.”

The little blonde girl skittered about, getting the rest of the packages onto the cart before the elevator reached the lower levels.  She popped back up, adjusting the little food parcels on the cart. 

“I hope so! I have to be the nicest because that’s what ladies do! Good ladies are the nicest!” 

Connie stared at her.

“Uhhh… I guess so?”

Christa nodded vigorously, her fair face flushed as she kept moving parcels around.

“If you aren’t nice, no one will like you and you won’t be able to survive.”

The bald engineer frowned, his forehead crinkling together. 

“Umm, Christa, are you okay?” 

“Yes!”

The blond girl took a deep breath and when she turned to face Connie she was radiating so much kindness and sunshine that he almost fell over.  The lift doors swished open before he could comment, and Christa flounced out of the door with a bag of rolls in her hand.

“Let’s go help Sasha get food!”

Connie paled.  “Don’t say the f-word!”  He heard a loud rumbling coming towards them at an alarming rate and cringed.  Too late. 

The rumbling got louder and then all of a sudden Christa was bowled over by what sounded like a rabid cat but was, of course, really Sasha.  The curly brunette inhaled deeply into the bag of rolls, then devoured the entire thing, packaging and all.  She sat panting heavily until she noticed Christa, sprawled on the floor, still winded from being knocked to the ground.  Sasha crawled up to her and stared adoringly.

“Did you bring me food?” Christa sat up and recovered herself enough to smile, close her eyes, and tilt her head at Sasha, trying her very best to exude sweetness, because that was the most important thing.

“Yes!”

Sasha continued to stare at Christa like she was seeing her for the very first time. 

And look, there’s more!” Christa gestured to the cart of food being pushed towards them, Connie still obstructed by the mass of packages. 

Connie grumbled as he pushed the cart forward. 

“I helped some too you know.” He said quietly as Sasha screamed in delight. 

Connie peeped his head around the pile he was pushing just in time to see Sasha grab Christa’s face and enthusiastically kiss the smaller girl _on the lips._

He was just about to protest the unfairness of the whole situation when a voice spoke up from the shadows in the corner of the room, making him jump. 

“I see how it is.”

Ymir emerged from the right corridor, where she had apparently been hiding this entire time.  Her hands were shaking as she glared venomously at Sasha, who was still wrapped around the tiny blond girl.  Christa’s eyes shot open at the sound of Ymir’s voice, and she quickly pushed Sasha away and called out to her friend.

“Ymir! There you are I’ve been looking everywhere…!”  Christa took in Ymir’s expression and looked over at Sasha. Ymir turned and ran in the opposite direction.  

 “Wait, Ymir! This isn’t…!”  Christa got up, quickly brushing herself off and took off after the leggier pilot, trying to keep up.  Ymir reached the lift before Christa could and the automatic doors slammed shut, leaving the blond girl banging on them.

“I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE NICE!” She screamed at the lift, sinking down to the floor.  She curled into a ball and started sobbing. 

Connie wasn’t the best at dealing with these kinds of situations to begin with, and his poor brain didn’t know what to do.  The moving cart slipped out of his hands and continued its trajectory towards his hungry friend before he could grab it again.

Sasha hadn’t even seemed to notice the commotion between her savior and Ymir.  Her attention was completely focused on the giant cart full of food barreling towards her.  She held her arms out towards it happily, and jumped on it before it collided with her.  Sasha started ripping into the packages and devouring dehydrated French fries while riding the still moving cart. 

The cart reached the far end of the engineering room and crashed for the third time that day, slamming Sasha into the wall, causing her to drop the bag of apples in her left hand.  She wailed, picking them up again and wolfing them down before they could become bruised, and then she moved on to the box lying on the ground closest to her. 

Looking back and forth between Christa sobbing by the elevator, and Sasha demolishing everything on the cart, Connie threw his hands up in the air. 

“I give up.” He stomped off down the corridor to go and talk to his ship.  The Enterprise would understand. Ships didn’t cry or kiss other people that weren’t him.  Connie needed some quality alone time with his beloved metal parts.

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Back to Eren and his Captain_

Eren and Levi reached the bridge. They both glanced over at Armin, then looked towards the front screen, taking in the conspicuous lack of pilots.

“What the fuck?” Levi and Eren ran over to the console and quickly adjusted the controls, taking the place of Ymir and Christa.

“Arlert!” Levi barked. “What’s going on here?”

Armin’s eyes were wide as he realized there was something actually wrong.

“I apologize sir!  I didn’t notice them leaving, but when I saw they were gone I assumed they were under your orders.”

Levi’s forehead creased, his fingers flying over the dashboard as he corrected their position.  The gravitational pull of the planet was increasing and the power output of the ship needed to be manually corrected frequently or the ship would start to get dragged into the atmosphere.  It was possibly one of the worst time for the ship’s two best pilots to decide to leave their posts.  Armin spoke up from his communications post as the Captain and first officer worked to correct their position.

“Doctor Kirstein told me to give you a message as soon as you arrived at the bridge.”  He paused to make sure Levi was listening.  The Captain jerked his head once without turning away from the controls, so Armin continued. 

“The Doctor says that Thomas was infected with something that looks like the same illness as what caused the damage on the research center.  He is working on synthesizing an antidote, but he doesn’t know if it is possible or how long it will take.  The most important thing, he said, is that the disease is passed from person to person through sweat, which means if you touch someone who is infected, you will also become infected.  It is unclear how long it takes before a patient’s judgment is affected.”

Levi stopped messing with the controls and looked at Armin and Eren. 

“Have either of you two touched anyone since the away team returned from the mission?”

Armin shook his head and Eren glanced sideways are his blond friend before muttering to Levi, “Just you.”

The communications officer looked at the two of them questioningly, but Levi didn’t seem to care.

“And I haven’t touched anyone else either, so the three of us should be safe.  We need to figure out who else is infected.”

“Well Thomas is definitely the source, he was acting strangely since we got back.” Eren said, taking over for Levi as the Captain walked over to his chair and sat down.  Armin started making notes on a PADD to catalogue the spread.

“Okay, Captain, who do we know that touched Thomas?” Armin tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and kept making notes.

“I saw Sasha and Ymir touch him during the meeting, but I wasn’t in sickbay after the fight.  Bertholt was fighting Thomas so he’s probably infected, who else?”

“Marco carried Thomas down to sickbay.” Eren supplied.

“And Braun helped get Bertholt there.”  Levi said. “Shit I let them go back on duty.  How many other people do you think they’ve already gotten to?” 

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. 

“Hold on Arlet, before we continue.  Get me a shipwide communication.  I need to make an announcement and warn the crew before this crap goes any further.”  Armin nodded and connected to the ship’s center communication system.  He frowned.

“Captain, there’s something wrong.  Someone in the main command room is blocking my communications.” 

“Why the fuck would someone do that?”

All three officers on the bridge looked up as a voice came over the loudspeaker. 

“Enterprise, this is your lead pilot, Ymirrr.”

Levi groaned.  “Oh fuck no.”

“I have had an extremely bad day.”  She continued, “and I would like to share it with you all.” 

There was a shuffling sound, and they heard a chip being inserted into Ymir’s console. She spoke again, and it was with that static-y quality that meant she had leaned right up to the mic.

“Thisss is dedicated to one particular person.”

She whispered conspiratorially to the entire ship.  “You know who you are.  I hope you enjoy the song.” 

There was a clicked and a moment of silence, then, at full volume….

“ _HEY HEY YOU YOU! I DON’T LIKE YOUR GIRLFRIEND!”_

Levi, Armin, and Eren all clasped their hands over their ears.

“ _NO WAY NO WAY! I THINK YOU NEED A NEW ONE!_ ”

_“HEY HEY YOU YOU! I COULD BE YOUR GIRLFRIEND!”_

Levi glared at Armin, hands still over his ears. “TURN IT OFF!” He yelled. “JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?”

Armin pulled his hands off his ears, wincing as his fingers flew over the console.

“ _HEY HEY YOU YOU! I KNOW THAT YOU LIKE ME!”_

_“NO WAY NO WAY! YOU KNOW ITS NOT A SECRET!”_

Armin swiveled around back to Levi and Eren.

“I CANT TURN IT OFF! SHE LOCKED ME OUT!” He shouted at them helplessly.  He put his fingers in his ears and his face scrunched up, thinking.  A look of realization passed over his face.  

Armin shouted something at Eren but the brunette boy couldn’t hear him.

“WHAT?”

“ _HEY HEY YOU YOU! I WANT TO BE YOUR GIRLFRIEND!”_

Getting up and walking over to Eren, Armin shouted his suggestion again.

“I SAID CLOSE THE VENTS!” 

Eren looked aghast. Closing the vents _would_ muffle the noise, but…

“WE’LL SUFFOCATE!”

“ _YOU’RE SO FINE I WANT YOU MINE YOU’RE SO DELICIOUSS!_ ”

Levi nodded at Eren.

“CLOSE THE GODDAMN VENTS JAEGER!” 

“ _I THINK ABOUT YOU ALL THE TIME YOU’RE SO ADDICTIVE”_

Eren jumped into gear, punching in a command sequence.  Throughout the ship, the air vents snapped shut.  Since the shipwide loudspeaker was inside the air vents, this song was muted. 

“ _Don’t you know what I can do to make you feel alright?_ ” It was better, but the song was still audible.  Just not at a decibel that would blow their ears off. 

Levi sighed, removing his hands from his head. 

“Better.  How much time do we have?” Cutting off the air vents meant that the entire ship would eventually run out of oxygen.  Armin’s eyes tilted upwards as he did some mental calculations.  
  
“Well, we have about ten hours before we start to pass out, so I think we’ll be okay.  The song can’t be more than five minutes long.”   Levi straighted up, glaring at the ceiling as the song continued in the background.

“ _Don’t pretend I think you know I’m damn precious.”_

“Arlet can you get communications to any other part of the ship?”

Armin shook his head.

“Ymir must’ve hit the emergency mass override, which as the name might suggest, cannot be overwritten.” 

Eren gaped at him.

“Do you mean we can’t contact anyone else on the ship?” he asked.

Armin frowned.  “Well the communicators should still work.  So as long as people have them and we know their personal code we should be able to get into contact.” The Bridge and main command centers were the only places that had communicators personal codes, which means that other members of the ship could be trying to contact them but would have no way of doing so. 

The Captain reached into his back pocket and pulled out his communicator, flipping it open.

“Whats Ackerman’s communicator code?” Armin told him, and he entered in the digits.

“Captain to Head of Security.  Ackerman, are you there?” there was a fizzing sound, and then…

“Ackerman here sir.  I have a situation to report sir.” 

“I know there’s a goddamn situation, half my senior crew is infected and Lt. Ymir locked us out of the ship’s communication system.  I need your security team to round up the infected parties and for the love of god don’t touch anyone.”

“Sir.”  Levi heard Mikasa take a breath before continuing. “The only member of the security team still unaffected is me.” 

“ _Fuck_.” Levi swore.  “What the hell is wrong with your team? How did everyone get infected?” Mikasa started to respond but he cut her off. 

“Never mind.  I need you to go to the main command center and put Ymir out of commission.”

“Roger that sir.” 

“And keep in communication.”  He glared upward to the obnoxious music

_“Hey hey you you I want to be your girlfriend, no way, no waa-aay. Hey Hey!”_

The all sighed in relief as the last notes of the song drifted away.  Levi nodded and Eren started to punch in the commands to open the air vents, but paused when Ymir’s voice came back on, muffled through the speakers.

“I don’t think my message got across clearly enough.”  She slurred. “Let me just play that for you.  One. More. _Time_.”

Levi’s eyes widened and he looked at his first officer.

“Don’t open the fucking vents.”

“ _HEY HEY! YOU YOU! I don’t like you’re girlfriend_!”

Levi turned his attention back to his communicator, still connected to Mikasa.

“Hurry.”  He breathed into the device.

“Yes sir.”  Mikasa said, then disconnected. 

“ _NO WAY NO WAY I think you need a new one!_ ”

Armin and Eren both sat there, waiting for Levi’s next order.  The Captain kept his communicator out.

“I need Doctor Kirstein’s communicator code.” Looking it up briefly, Armin relayed the number over to Levi.

“Captain to Chief Medical Officer.  Captain to Chief Medical Officer.”  He spoke into the communicator. 

They waited, but the only response was static.  Armin spoke slowly.

“We know Marco’s infected… Do you think…?”

“Shit.”

Levi tried again.

“Captain to CMO. Respond!” The device continued to spew static.

“Fuck. If Kirstein is out of commission we are all royally screwed.” 

“ _I think about you all the time you’re so addictive_.”

Levi put his communicator away and jumped out of his chair.

“Eren, we’re going down to medical. Arlet, can you pilot this ship by yourself?”

The blond boy paled.

“I-I’ve never… I d-don’t have any experience.” He stuttered. 

Levi stepped towards him.

“I didn’t ask if you’ve done it before, I asked you if you could do it now.  I need Eren with me, if we need to subdue any crewmembers he’ll be more useful.  And I don’t want to bring anyone else up here because there’s no guarantee they won’t be infected.  Keeping the bridge locked down with only you is the safest option. Now, can you pilot this ship?” 

 Armin thought for a moment, then tensed and straightened up in his chair.

“Yes sir!”

Levi graced his communications officer with a small smile.

“Good.  Stay in communications, and be ready if I need you to get me in contact with anyone else.  Lock it down and make sure it only opens under my voice command.” 

Armin nodded, and he put one arm to his heart and one arm behind him in a salute as Levi and Eren left the bridge.

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Back in sickbay_

Jean was working as fast as he could, both helped and somewhat hampered by the ministrations of his nurse.  He had removed Marco from his lap and gotten him to help out with the reconstruction of the illness.  Their progress was also somewhat hindered by the sudden blasting of Ymir’s song, but thankfully someone had managed to reduce the volume to a manageable level and he was able to get back to work.  He prayed that Marco was focused enough to actually do what he was asked.  The freckled nurse had two years of university experience creating antidotes for a pharmaceutical company and in his normal state he would’ve been much faster than Jean.  However, only twenty minutes after Jean set Marco to his task he heard the high heeled boots clacking back over to him as Marco tried to resituate himself into Jean’s lap. 

“Marco, Sweetie, I told you I can’t touch you right now.”  He leaned away from his friend as Marco tried to put their noses together. 

“But Jeannn I finished cataloguing the compound sequence of the antidote, see?”  Marco wiggled his sheet of paper in front of the Doctor proudly. 

Jean breathed a sigh of relief, grabbing the paper and beginning to enter the information into the computer. He ripped his gloves off to type faster.

“Marco, you are the most amazing, wonderful, beautiful person on the planet.” He breathed, slamming his hand down onto the compile button.  The computer whirred, and a wrote the proper sequence onto a data chip.  Jean stared intently at the progress bar, not noticing the Marco had sidled up behind him.  He felt hands on his back and tried to move away, but Marco pulled him in tight and rubbed his cheek against Jean’s before the doctor could extricate himself.  Jean stopped, reaching up to touch the spot on his face where Marco’s cheek had been. 

The computer beeped pleasantly upon completion of the sequence.  Jean jerked away from Marco, realizing what had just happened.  Marco had touched him.

“Shit shit shit!” He didn’t know how much time he had.  The CMO grabbed the chip, pushing Marco away from him and ran over to the synthesizer.

 

He flipped it on and set it to begin creating the first batch of antidotes.  He glanced back to Marco sitting dejectedly where Jean’s butt had just been.  

“We just need to hang on for a bit longer, Sweetie.”  He said.  “We can test the serum on ourselves once it’s done.”

The synthesizer informed him that the first batch of hypos would be ready in fifteen minutes. 

“Jean?”  Marco’s sad little voice made him turn around.

“Are you mad at me?” Marco asked, peeking up at Jean through his veil. He hiccupped slightly.

“No no noo shhhh.” He said, walking back over to his friend, and the nurse looked down at the floor.

“I… hic… I finished the serum as fast as I could…”  Marco looked so upset and Jean figured that he was already infected, so he held his arms out.  Marco reacted instantly, standing up and wrapping his arms around Jean, who rubbed little circles in his back.

“You did such a good job,” Jean crooned. “I’d never have been able to figure it out that quickly.  You probably saved us all!” 

Marco pulled back to look at Jean and smiled a little bit, reaching up to rub at his eyes, but Jean stopped him.

“No no, you’ll mess up your pretty makeup, don’t do that.”  The nurse’s smile grew bigger. 

“You think my makeup is pretty?” He asked. Jean blushed.

“I uhh…”

“Will you call me sweetie again?” Marco asked suddenly.  Jean relaxed and put his arms back around his friend. 

“Sure thing sweetie.”  He said.  Marco turned so that Jean’s back way to the chair, and indicated that Jean should sit down.  The doctor did, and Marco quickly climbed back into his and looked so pleased with himself that Jean couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Okay.”  He said, poking Marco’s nose. 

The nurse giggled and rubbed his face up against Jean’s again. 

“Mmmmpf.” He said. “You’re really warm.”

“And you’re really snuggly.” Jean said, smiling affectionately.  Marco pouted.

“I tolddd you I’m always snugglyyy.”  He muttered.  “Mmm just not usually allowed to beee.” 

Jean laughed. 

“True, I supposed today has been a bit unprofessional all around.”  Jean could feel the virus start to take effect, and he found he didn’t really care all that much. 

He smiled sleepily at Marco, who smiled back, and Jean abruptly realized there was something that he absolutely wanted to do.  I mean, he had always wanted to do this but thought it would be weird to ask.  This was his chance, right? To do this one thing.

“Marco…?” He said shyly.

“Yes, Jean?” Marco was cuddled against his chest, but he lifted his head when Jean spoke. 

“Can I…?” Jean lifted his hand up to Marco’s face, then dropped it.  “Uhh… Can I count your freckles?” 

He ran his fingers through his fringe, waiting.  Marco tittered and turned a little pink, but he closed his eyes and tilted his head back so Jean had a better view. 

“Of course you can.” 

Jean smirked triumphantly, and adjusted Marco’s face so that he could start on one the left side.  The veil was in his way, so he pulled Marco’s headband off and set it aside. 

“We’ll put it back on later.”  He said, then put his fingers on Marco’s cheek, intent on his task. 

“One… two… three… four…”  Marco fidgeted and Jean flicked his nose, causing the nurse to squeak. 

“No moving, I’m gonna loose track.  This is important!” 

“twenty seven… twenty eight… twenty nine…”  he went in a careful pattern, up and down Marco’s face to ensure he didn’t miss a single freckle, forehead wrinkled in concentration. 

Marco watched him dopily, still sitting in Jean’s lap, thinking that if Jean’s face stayed scrunched up like that forever he would always look like a raisin.  A very cute raisin. 

“Seven two…. Seventy three…. Seventy four!”  Jean cackled happily, then looked at Marco seriously.

“There are seventy four freckles on your face.”  He said wonderingly. “I’ve wanted to know that since the day I met you!”  He stroked Marco’s face softly, smiling proudly at his new information. 

The nurse’s eyes were half closed and he hummed blissfully as Jean leaned in closer. 

“M-Marco…”

The freckled man’s smile turned slightly mischievous. 

“Yes, _Doctor_?” Jean’s ears went red and Marco smiled wider.  Marco repositioned himself so that instead of being curled up in Jean’s lap, he was straddling the doctor.   Putting both hands on either side of Jean’s face, he started moving forward, tilting his head in, and…

The sickbay doors flew open, Eren and Levi striding through. 

“Oh god fucking dammit.”  Levi said, looking at Marco in all his fish netted, high-heeled, lip-sticked glory, sitting very much on top of their chief medical officer.

“We are fucking doomed.”  He said, and Marco got up unsteadily from Jean and beamed happily at them.

“Raisins!” He said cheerfully.  Behind him, Jean jumped up, remembering something.  He ran desperately across the room, over to Eren, who was staring dazedly at Marco’s outfit.  _What if the Captain wore something like that?_

“Jaeger!” Jean said, grabbing Eren’s face between his hands.  “I’ve got something important I have to tell you!”

“Oh fuck no.” Levi swatted Jean’s hands away from Eren’s face, but Jean simply grabbed the Captain’s hand instead.

“THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT!” the doctor yelled, and Levi stilled, narrowing his eyes at him and extracting his hand.  _He sounds focused. Maybe we’re not completely screwed._

“What is it doctor?”

Jean got right up in Levi’s face, and looked him dead in the eyes to make sure he had the Captain’s full attention.

“Seventy four.”  He said.

“What?”

“There are seventy four freckles on Marco’s face.” 

Levi groaned.“Oh fuck me sideways with a Romulan Battle Cruiser.”  He wiped desperately at the hand that had touched Jean’s skin, looking over at Eren who looked horrified, scrubbing at his face with a sleeve.  The first officer met Levi’s gaze and tears filled his eyes. 

“How much time do you think we have Captain?”

“Don’t starting crying on me now, Brat!” Levi looked around the room, for something, anything that could help, and his eyes landed on the synthesizer, which was blinking green.  He and Eren both ran over to the machine. 

“They finished the antidote.” Eren said breathlessly.  Levi huffed out a small laugh, opening up the canister and pulling out the two vials.

“This looks like the first batch.”  Eren gazed down at the two little vials. 

“There’s only two.” 

“Good job genius.” 

“Well, who do we give them to?” Eren asked.  Levi frowned.

“Much as I don’t want to turn into a freckle counting madman, I don’t really know how to operate the fucking synthesizer, do you?” Eren shook his head and Levi nodded.

“Alright, Jean and Marco is it then.”   

The Captain handed Eren one of the vials, and they strode over to the medical pair, Levi jabbing Marco in the arm while Eren did Jean. 

The affect was instantaneous.  Jean’s eyes cleared, and he jerked away Eren.

“Ow Eren watch it!” he said, then paused. “Oh shit it worked.”  Then he looked at Eren and Levi and realized what they had just witnessed. “Oh shit.”

Marco wasn’t fairing much better.  His eyes opened fully, and he looked down at himself.  Then he blushed red enough to match his dress, and started stammering.  Levi cut him off.

“I know your fucking embarrassed but I don’t give a Tribble shit right now.  I need you to finish making the antidote.” 

Jean quickly turned back to the synthesizer, talking over his shoulder as he pressed buttons.  His voice was gruff and he tried to ignore how pink his ears were. 

“I’m going to make a batch of 100.  I’m sorry sir, but it’s going to take at least a half hour to get the vials ready.” 

Levi glared at the Doctor’s back.  He could already feel his face flushing.

“That’s not fucking good enough you little shit, I need the antidote NOW!” Levi yelled, and they all turned to look at him. 

“Oh fuck… Shit… I mean…”  He looked down at his shaking hands.  Without another word, Levi turned and ran out of sickbay. 

“Captain!” Without hesitating, Eren raced after him. 

Jean and Marco watched them go.  Jean glanced at Marco, and Marco glanced at Jean, then they both looked away awkwardly. 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Levi ran down the hallway, looking left and right, desperately looking for an isolated room. He needed to be alone.  He found a deserted conference room, slipped inside, and changed the door lock to Captain’s override only, then collapsed at one of the tables, resting his head against the cold surface. 

“Control yourself Levi.”  He growled, taking in a deep breath and trying to let it out slowly.  There was a pounding at the door.

“CAPTAIN!” Eren yelled. “LET ME IN!” 

Levi ignored him, shutting out the pounding.  After a few minutes, it grew silent, and Levi looked up, surprised.  The brat gave up?

Then the door slid open to reveal a panting Eren. 

“How the fuck did you get in here?”

Eren shrugged, walking into the room.  The door slid shut behind him, effectively locking them in together.

“I know your override code, sorry Sir.”

Levi blanched.

“You know…?!”

His override code was brighteyes.  Dumb as fuck, he knew… And if Eren knew…

“Yeah, I’m sorry... I cheated and watched you type it in a while ago.  I’ve always wanted to ask you, is that some sort of Klingon phrase or something?”

The “bright eyes” in question looked at him innocently.  He hadn’t figured it out. 

Levi laughed.

“You’re actually an idiot.” 

Eren looked confused. 

“Huh?” 

Levi didn’t respond, closing his eyes and concentrating on breathing deeply again. 

“Captain…?” Levi’s eyes snapped open in irritation.

“Seriously Eren? We’re locked in a room waiting for a virus to turn us into blithering idiots, and you’re still calling me Captain?”

“Sorry, Levi.”  Eren whispered.

“Stop apologizing and just call me Levi when we’re alone.”  Levi peeked at him.  “Deal, Brat?”

“D-deal.” Eren stuttered a bit at the idea of calling the Captain something different when they were alone.  He kept talking to distract himself. “Now, will you tell me what your override means?” 

Levi looked over to the corner of the room.  There was a small mirror stationed by the computer.  He jerked his head towards it.

“Go look in thuh mirrur.”  His words were slurring a tiny bit already.  Crap. 

Eren walked over to the mirror, gazing at his reflection and examining the eyes staring back at him.  Levi watched his face at the realization set him. 

“Wait what!?” Eren’s voice went high.

Levi laughed, suddenly not very concerned about the fact that Eren had figured it out.  In fact, Eren’s reaction was quite… appealing.

“Yeah, Brat.”

What Levi did not expect, was for Eren to wilt and look at him somewhat angrily.

“Are you making fun of me?” Eren demanded.  Levi blinked.  “You know I like you!” 

Levi stopped mid laugh and stood up.

“How the fuck would I know that?”  He glared at Eren, and the brunette pointed at Levi’s hand.

“You’re touch telepathy! You kept grabbing my arm—”

“That’s not how touch telepathy works you dumbasss.”

“Oh.”  Eren deflated a bit. He started giggling.  “Well.. Crap… I guess you know now.”

Levi grinned lazily and strolled over to Eren, backing the boy up against a wall. Eren didn’t look particularly displeased about it.

“I guess I do now, Bright Eyes.” 

Eren blushed at the sound of his unknown nickname, and Levi held two fingers up to his XO’s face, running them down the side of his cheek. 

“L-levi…”

Eren’s brilliant eyes were a little bit clouded over, but still more than pretty enough for Levi. 

“Say my name again.”  He said.  The boy grinned, leaning forward to breath into his Captain’s ear.

“Levi,” he whispered, reaching up and running his thumb across Levi’s pointed ear.  “I’ve always wondered… Are Vulcan ears sensitive?”

Levi didn’t respond and Eren leaned his head back slightly to get a better look at his face, brushing his thumb down the backside of the Captain’s ear as he did so. 

Levi’s cheeks and the tips of his ears were flushed a deep green, and there was a predatory smile on his face, which went temporarily slack as he shivered.

“I should’ve warned you not to do that, Brat.”  He said.  “But to answer your question.  Yes, they are very sensitive.” 

There was a muffled crash sound that came from the ceiling and both men looked up.  Then they noticed that the song was no longer playing in the background.  Eren whooped and threw his fist up in the air.

Levi smiled blurrily at Eren.

“You’re adopted sister gets the job done doesn’t she?”

Eren’s eyes focused momentarily. 

“If Mikasa is in the control room… She canseeussss?”  He looked around the room, finding the camera quickly.  He tugged Levi into a different corner of the room.

Levi grinned sloppily in understanding.

“Blind spot.” He purred, and then he pulled Eren closer.

  -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_In the Main Command Room_

The door to the main command center burst open, and Mikasa ran into the room with her phasor held out in front of her. 

Ymir was strewn lazily across the console, glaring balefully that the security monitors that showed Christa crying down in Engineering as Sasha (who had eaten everything on the cart) started looking for more food. 

“Freeze Ymir.” Mikasa said calmly. Ymir turned to look at her. 

“What do you want?” She said, starting to stand up.  Mikasa put her out with a phasor blast before the freckled woman could react.  It was only set to stun after all.  Ymir would be fine.  She rushed over to the console and flipped at couple of switches. 

“Command center to Bridge.  Command Center to Bridge.”

_Back on the bridge_

Armin was worried.  He tried contacting both the Captain and Eren, but neither of them were answering their communicators. 

He heard the crash from above, and then blissful silence.  He quickly opened the air vents because it was starting to get a little stale, and was preparing to start trying to locate the Captain and first Officer when the monitor beeped.

“Command center to Bridge.  Command Center to Bridge.”  Breathing out a sigh of relief, Armin quickly hit reply.

“Mikasa? Is that you?”

“Armin.”  Her voice was as neutral as it always was. “I’ve opened the ship-wide communications back up to you.  “

“Thanks, hold on a minute, okay?”

The blonde officer wasted no time connecting himself back to the sickbay.

“Bridge to Sickbay.  Bridge to Sickbay.”

He felt a rush of relief when a response came through.

“Sickbay to Bridge.  This is Doctor Kirstein.” 

“Jean.  Status report.  Why isn’t the Captain responding to his communicator?”

There was a huff of air and Armin waited for a response.

“Well I may have accidently infected the Captain and First Officer.” 

“What..?”

“It’s okay! They ran off but Marco and I have almost finished synthesizing the antidote, we’ll try to find them once its finished.” 

“Understood.  Should I assume that the Captain and First Officer are out of commission for the time being then?”

“Affirmative.  That makes you acting Captain until we can get them cured.”  Jean responded.  Armin closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  His friends were counting on him.  He wouldn’t let them down. 

“Very well Doctor.  Keep me updated, I’m going to try to have Mikasa round up the Captain, First Officer, and the chief pilots first.  It is the most important that we get them functioning as soon as possible.  Armin out.”  He hung up on Jean and switched his communication back to Mikasa.

“Bridge to Main Control Center.”  She responded immediately.

“Main Control Center to Bridge.  I’m still here Armin.” 

“Mikasa, do you have visuals on the rest of the ship?”

“Affirmative.” She said. 

“Can you locate Pilots Ymir and Christa, and the Captain and Eren?”  He glanced nervously back at the ship’s dashboard where he had set the ship’s trajectory on autopilot the best that he could.  The ship’s orbit was extremely unstable, and the sooner they got two experienced pilots back on the bridge, the better for everyone. 

“Ymir is here in Command with me.  She is stunned, but should be waking up shortly.”  He heard Mikasa switching through monitor screens. 

“Christa is down in Engineering.  She is sitting on the floor.” 

There was a pause, then…

“I don’t see the Captain and First Officer anywhere.” 

That was concerning.  Where could they have gone? Right now, however, the pilots were actually more important to the ship’s safety.  Armin thought for a minute before responding.

“Mikasa, get Ymir down to sickbay, then take some antidote down to Christa and get them both back up here.  If you have to touch either of them, just make sure you get the antidote too before it can start affecting you.”

“Armin.” Mikasa’s voice was sharp. “What about the Captain and Eren?”

“Mikasa! I will keep trying to locate them.  Without Ymir and Christa, we will get eaten up in this planet’s atmosphere, and then there will really be nothing that you can do for either of them.”

He could almost hear her fight with herself.

“Okay Armin.  I’ll get the pilots the antidote.”

“Good.  Keep in contact.  Armin out.”

“Mikasa out.”  She responded. 

Armin decided it would be helpful to know exactly who was out of commission and who was still around in this situation.  He changed his channel to the ship wide speaker system that Ymir had been using.

“Enterprise. This is Communications Officer Armin Arlet.  As you are probably all aware, we are experiencing a crisis.  A good portion of the crew is infected by a virus that has similar symptoms to high levels of alcohol intoxication.  If you have not been affected yet, please take care to allow no one to touch you and check in with me.  I repeat, if you are unaffected check back in with me.”  He didn’t mention that he didn’t know where the Captain was.  Although the ship probably deserved to know, he calculated that it would more likely result in panic than anything else, giving the state of everyone. 

He pulled up the security cameras and started doing a thorough search for the Captain and Eren.  He almost didn’t want to, considering if the Captain and Eren were alone and infected… Together… and the fact that they weren’t showing up on the cameras meant they probably didn’t particularly _want_ to be found…. _Nope stop there._   Armin sternly told his brain.  He didn’t need to be thinking about that. The Captain and Eren were probably just drunkenly bickering about fuel turbines like they usually did.  Nothing funny about that. 

As he searched for Eren and Levi, he responded to the sporadic reports of unaffected officers across the ship.  He was pleased to note that almost thirty officers had managed to stay away from the virus by locking themselves up in the biology lab.  They had been trying to contact the bridge since they saw one of their fellow officers skipping down the hall telling everyone that he was the “Skipth Lord” and they needed to fear him.  

He instructed a few of them to get to sickbay so that they could start distributing the antidote to the rest of the ship.

It seemed like this situation was actually containable.  As long as the Captain and Eren were okay…

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_Main Control Center_

Mikasa hung up from her call with Armin, seething as she roughly grabbed Ymir and slung the unconscious pilot across her shoulders.  She was thinking the same thing that Armin had been trying not to.  If Eren and the Captain were both missing, and both infected.  She knew Eren had an unrequited crush on the Captain and she also knew her adopted brother was impulsive.  Combine that with a virus that stripped away self control and…. She just hoped Eren didn’t get himself punched.  Or worse. 

_I don’t care if he’s the Captain I’ll throttle that stupid midget if he lays a finger on Eren,_ she thought as she ran down the halls, entering the lift to get Ymir to sickbay.  She noticed that Ymir’s hand had brushed against her face when she lifted her, so Mikasa made a mental note to get herself the antidote first.  Can’t be too careful. 

When she got back to sickbay, Jean was waiting for her.  He wasted no time in stabbing both her and Ymir with hypos full of the antidote.  Mikasa didn’t even flinch, but Ymir woke up and made to punch Jean in the face, but her face cleared and she stopped herself. 

“What even happened today?”  She stared around at the room, her eyes settling on Marco, who still hadn’t gotten the chance to change. 

“Woah nice outfit, Other Freckles.”  She said, making the nurse blush.  Jean smiled crookedly at the comment, looking at his friend.

“Yeah he’s been getting that a lot today.” 

Mikasa stood up. 

“Jean.”  She said, to get his attention.  He paused what he was doing and looked at her. 

“You and Ymir need to get down to Engineering to cure Christa and get them back on the bridge.  Armin is in trouble up there.”  Having said her piece, she grabbed two more antidote hypos and turned to leave sickbay. 

“Hey!” Jean called after her, making her stop. “Where are you going?”

“To find our Captain and First Officer.”  She said.  Jean and Marco looked at each other, in silent agreement that that was possibly the worst thing for Mikasa to be doing.

Marco intercepted her, looking like he was seriously questioning his mental judgment for doing so, holding his hands up placatingly. 

“Mikasa, I’ll go look for Eren and the Captain.”

“Why?”

Marco looked at Jean for help, and the doctor spoke up.

“You might encounter some resistance getting down to engineering, and you also have some experience piloting, so you should go help Ymir get Christa back to the bridge yourself.  I need to stay here and help get the antidote out to everyone.  Marco can go out searching for them.” 

Mikasa hesitated, looking around the room and realizing that she wasn’t behaving properly. 

“Okay.” She said, gesturing to the freckled pilot with the two antidotes in her hand.  Ymir jumped up and went with her out the door. 

Marco sighed. 

“Now I guess I really do have to go look for Levi and Eren.”  Jean smiled sympathetically, handing Marco two hypos. 

“Good luck Buddy.”  Marco headed out the door, leaving Jean to continue to prepare the rest of the 432 vials of antidote for the entire ship.  The doctor wasn’t taking any chances. 

Mikasa and Ymir reached Engineering, both with hypos in hand.  Mikasa strode over to deal with Sasha.  Christa looked up immediately and stared despairingly at Ymir.

“SASHA ISNT MY GIRLFRIEND!!!” Ymir gathered Christa up in her arms and carefully injected her with the hypos. 

“I know that, you idiot,” Ymir said. “I was drunk, and so are you.” 

The medicine started to take effect, and Christa’s expression cleared from tearfulness to concern and annoyance. 

“Ymir, we left our posts! This is a tricky orbit for the Enterprise! We need to get back there!”  Ymir smiled, standing up and helping the smaller girl to her feet. 

“Great, let’s do that.”  They both looked over to Mikasa, who was holding down a struggling Sasha. 

“I follow you in a minute.”  She said, calmly stabbing Sasha with the vial.  “Go now.” 

Ymir and Christa left to return to their posts without another thought. Leaving Mikasa to deal with the overfed Engineer.

“C-connie…?” Sasha blearily opened her eyes, no longer under the influence of the virus but suddenly very tired from all of the food.  She looked at Mikasa, shrugged, and then promptly fell asleep.  Mikasa left her on the ground and walked down into the second room of Engineering.  There she found Connie, lying on his back with half his body underneath one of the dashboards, fiddling with the settings. 

“Lt. Springer!” She said loudly, and he jumped, cursing as he hit his head on something.  He crawled out from under the electrical wires and jumped to attention in front of Mikasa, doing his best attempt at a salute.  She eyed him warily.

“How much do you know about what has been going on today on the ship?” she asked.  He frowned at her confusedly.

“Well, Sasha didn’t eat for eight hours and Christa and Ymir broke up.  Or something.”  He said.  “Why? Has the rest of the ship been having a bad day? The Enterprise doesn’t sound particularly happy, but that’s because we’re straining her engines with this orbit.”  He smiled fondly at the metal parts on the other side of the room.  “She works so hard.” 

Then he remembered he was talking to Mikasa and jumped back to attention. 

She sighed, debating whether it was worth explaining things to this idiot, and decided against it, opting to just say.

“Sasha is feeling better now.  I’m going back up to the bridge, keep an extra close eye on the Enterprise until we get away from this planet.” 

Connie nodded vigorously. 

“Yes sir!”  He turned back to tend to his ship and was muttering to himself about stupid orbit projections and imploding planets when Mikasa left the room. 

_\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

_And back up to the Bridge we go._

Christa and Ymir reached the bridge to find a very distressed Armin struggling with both of the piloting controls. 

“Oh thank god you’re both here!” He said. “I can’t stabilize the orbit! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, the Enterprise seems really sluggish.” 

“Don’t worry!” Christa chirped as Armin jumped out of her seat, adjusting his skirt and backing away from the console.  “We’ll take care of the Enterprise!”

Ymir rolled her eyes, but also settled into her position, running her hands across the dashboard with ease, her and Christa working together seamlessly to get the ship back into its proper path.  Armin watched them, fascinated by their skill. 

After a few minutes though, the ship slipped back down a little bit. Ymir cursed. 

“What’s going on?” She hissed.  Christa pulled up some diagnostics and called Armin over.

“There actually is something wrong with the ship.”  She said, wringing her hands.  Ymir took control of the situation.

“Armin, get Connie on the line.”  Armin nodded, and pulled the engineering deck up on his communications line.

“Bridge to Engineering.  Bridge to Engineering.” 

It took a minute or two, but Connie responded.

“Engineering to Bridge.  What is it Armin?”

Armin pulled Ymir over to the console to explain.  The doors swished open and Mikasa entered the bridge.  Armin pointed at the second pilot station and Mikasa sat down, temporarily taking over for Ymir. 

“There’s something wrong with the Enterprise, Connie.”  She briefly explained the situation to him, and he huffed out an annoyed breath.

“I know exactly what the problem is.  We just installed a new compressor coil.  Hold on.”  There was a shuffling sound, and Connie hung up on them, calling the bridge back on his communicator. 

“Sorry guys.” He said.  “It shouldn’t be a big problem, the old compressor coil is fine, I just need to figure out what Sasha did with it.” 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Down in engineering, Connie approached the sleeping Sasha with caution.  He didn’t see the compressor coil anywhere, so he started poking her awake with one hand while holding the communicator with the other.

“Sash… Sash… Hey SASHA I NEED YOUR HELP!” Sasha jumped up, sputtering.  She blinked at Connie. 

“Oh hey, sorry I feel asleep.  What been going on?” She looked around at all the food debris. 

“What happened?  Did I… eat all this?” Connie stared at her.

“You don’t remember?”  She shook her head, looked down at her expanded stomach.  Connie looked down at it with apprehension. 

“I think you have a black hole in there Sash.”  He said. “I don’t think it’s physically possible for everything that you just ate to fit in there.” 

She shrugged. “Can you just tell me what happened?”

“Basically you forgot to eat for a while, went crazy so I brought you food, and then you fell asleep”

“Oh.” Sasha frowned.  “That doesn’t sound so bad.” 

Connie rolled his eyes.

“Maybe not for you, but I was a feared for my life.

“CONNIE!” Ymir’s voice squawked from the communicator in his hand.  “Stay focused!”

Connie nodded, not seeming to realize that Ymir couldn’t actually see him, and turned back to Sasha.

“Do you remember helping me switch out the compressor coils?” He asked. 

Sasha nodded slowly.

“Vaguely.” She said. 

“Good,” Connie replied. “Okay, do you remember where the old compressor coil went? We need it back now.” 

Sasha tilted her head thinking, and then went very still. 

“Connie I absolutely have no idea what I did with it I have no clue where it went.” She said very quickly. 

Connie rolled his eyes.

“You’re a terribly liar.  C’mon Sasha, what did you do with it?”

She shook her head at him.

“I have no idea.” She stated again in a complete monotone.

“Seriously. It can’t be that bad.” 

“I TOLD YOU I DON’T KNOW WHERE IT IS!” 

Connie started to say something, then his mouth snapped shut as he stared at Sasha’s stomach again. 

“Sash.”  She looked guiltily at him. “Sash. No. Please tell me you didn’t.” 

“What? What is it? Where did she put it?”  Armin’s voice reminded Connie again that they weren’t alone.

Connie closed his eyes and spoke through gritted teeth. 

“Sasha ate the compressor coil.” 

Neither Armin nor Ymir could think of a response to that, so they all sat in silence on the line for a minute, processing that information. 

After awhile Sasha spoke up quietly on Connie’s line.

“Guys?” She asked.  “Guys are you still there?”

Armin groaned, finally reacting.

“Sashaa you ATE IT??”

“I was really hungry!! It was on the ground right next to me!” She protested.  “I was infected! It’s not my fault!”

Connie, who still wasn’t up to date on the whole “virus” portion of the day, started.

“Wait, what?? You were infected?!?!” he put the communicator up to his mouth. “Why didn’t anyone tell me??”

Armin spoke quietly, his voice expressing just how completely done he was with the situation.

“Connie, almost the entire ship got sick today with a disease that makes everyone act drunk.”

“Ooooohhhh….” Connie brightened up.  “Actually that makes the whole Ymir and Christa thing make a lot more sense!

Armin suppressed what must’ve been his fiftieth groan of the day.

“Hold on!”  Sasha spoke up. “You think I would’ve eaten a _compressor coil_ normally?”

Connie looked at her calmly.

“You eat everything.” 

“GUYS!” Armin jerked them all back to attention.

“We need to get Sasha’s stomach pumped.  Like right now.  Before the ship burns up.” 

Sasha paled. “Wait, do you mean, take the food… That I’ve already eaten… and take it out of me??” 

She wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach.  “YOU CAN’T HAVE IT. IT’S MINE!”

Armin glanced backwards towards Mikasa. “Are you sure you gave her the antidote?”

Connie’s voice came through the other end of the line. “No Armin she’s fine.  This is normal Sasha.” 

Connie gently pried Sasha’s arms apart.

“Come on Sasha, let’s get going.” 

Sasha whined pitifully, staring up at Connie.

“But Con…  It’s all gonna go to waste if you take it out!!” She looked at his, a single tear leaking out of her eye. 

“You can’t waste food…”  She huddled herself in a ball around herself. 

Connie was more of a man of action than words.  There wasn’t much he could realistically do to comfort Sasha.  So the engineer carefully gathered his lanky friend up in his arms and picked her up, starting to carry her towards the lift.  Sasha unballed herself and started squirming around. 

“Put me down Connie!” 

He held on tighter.

“If I put you down, will you come to sickbay with me then?”  He asked.

“Maybe…” She muttered.  Connie stopped, slowly letting her down to the floor, but quickly grabbing her hand in an iron grip.  She looked down at their hands, tugging halfheartedly. 

“No fair…” She said.  Connie dragged her the rest of the way to the lift and entered in the command for sickbay.  Sasha was looking at him like he had horribly betrayed her trust.  He wilted. 

“Ah, Sasha don’t look at me like that!” He groaned.  “If we don’t get that thing out of your stomach all of us are going to die!” 

He thought for a moment.

“And actually I’m pretty sure you can’t digest a compressor coil so you might die too.” 

Sasha scoffed.  “My stomach can handle anything.”

“I don’t doubt it.  Especially after today.” 

The lift doors opened towards sickbay and Connie looked at Sasha imploringly. 

“Are you gonna come quietly?” He said.  The curly brunette deflated a bit and noddle.  Connie smiled and grabbed her hand again.  She growled at him.

“What, don’t you trust me? I’m not gonna run away!” She said. 

Connie looked surprised.

“Oh, no, of course I do! I know you won’t run away.”  Sasha held up their interlinked hands.

“Then why are we holding hands?”

“I uhh… Extra security measure.”  Connie said, and Sasha eyed him dubiously. 

She squared her shoulders, squeezed Connie’s hand tightly, and they walked into sickbay together. 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

While Connie and Sasha were working on getting the ship’s compressor coil back, Marco was still hunting for the Captain.  He didn’t think that the two of them could have gone far, especially not in their state.  If he knew the Captain (which, admittedly he didn’t, but he had an impression), then Levi had probably ducked into the first empty room and locked himself in.  The fact that Eren was also missing was evidence that Levi hadn’t successfully evaded his first officer. 

Marco strode down the hallways, checking each of the rooms for occupants.  He came to a small, not frequently used conference room and found it to be locked.  Aha.  He typed his security passcode into the lock and it flashed red at him, angrily informing him that the door needed a Captain’s override to be opened.  Double aha. 

He pulled out his communicator and pinged Armin up on the Bridge. 

“Marco to Bridge.”

“Lt. Arlert here.” 

“Hi Armin! I found them.”  Marco said, leaning his ear against the door while he spoke.  He couldn’t hear anything coming from inside. 

“Great!” Armin said. “Did you get them the antidote?”

“No.” he responded.  “They’ve locked themselves into a conference room and I can’t get in.”

“Oh.”  He heard Armin typing.  “Which conference room?” 

“3046 floor C.” 

“Give me a minute.”  Armin said, pulling up the security footage.

“I don’t see them, they must be in the blind spot.”  Armin cautiously turned the microphone for the room on, but he still didn’t hear anything from inside the room.  He wasn’t sure if he was relived or not about that.  

“I don’t have a visual or any sound coming from in the room.”  He told Marco.  “You’re going to have to go in there.” 

Marco nodded, then remembered his communicator.  “Alright.” 

“Okay, um are you ready?  I’m going to open the door.”

Marco steeled himself, his face red with pre-embarrassment for what he was going to have to walk in on.

“I really hope you don’t need therapy after this.”  Armin muttered. 

Taking a deep breath, the freckled nurse positioned himself in front of the door.

“I-I’m sure I’ve seen worse?” He whispered into his communicator. 

Armin entered in a combination, and the door to the conference room whooshed open.  Cautiously and carefully, Marco entered the room, his eyes landing on the corner of the room which was the camera’s blind spot. 

“ _oh_.”  He breathed. 

“ _what is it_?” Armin whispered fiercely.  Marco didn’t respond at first, creeping quietly towards the Vulcan and his first officer. 

Eren and Levi were asleep, curled up on the floor together like a pair of cats.  Eren was sitting somewhat upright, propped upright by the wall behind and to the side of him, his head was tilted against the wall with a spot of drool on his chin.   Levi was lying on his side, curled up with his head in Eren’s lap.  One of the younger man’s hands was resting in Levi’s hair. 

Marco brought the communicator close to his face and whispered into it.

“ _They’re sleeping!”_   He couldn’t prevent his voice from squeaking a little bit.  

He heard Armin laugh softly on the other side of the line. 

“I think I’m gonna wake them up if I stab them with these hypos.”  Said Marco.  “Such a shame.”

“Wait!” Armin tried to keep his voice down. 

“What?” Marco was confused. 

“Take a picture before you wake them up!”  Armin said, trying not to giggle.  Marco blushed.

“I don’t think the Captain would like that…”  He said, and Armin huffed. 

“Just take the picture!”  Marco pulled out his tricorder, fiddled with it a bit, and took a few silent pictures of his dozing superiors. 

“ _Okay._ ”  He whispered. “ _Now can I wake them up_?” 

“Go ahead.”  Marco pulled both the antidote vials out, but decided to wake the Captain up first.  He tried to be as gentle as possible with the hypo, and Levi woke up relatively gently.  When the Captain saw Marco looming over them, he quickly lifted his head up and away from Eren’s lap.  Eren started to stir, one of his hands searching for the missing warmth. 

“Levi…mmmphf… “ Levi’s face flushed green, and he grabbed Marco’s second hypo, stabbing Eren not quite so gently before the boy could say anything else. 

Eren’s eyes snapped open, back to awareness.

“Ow!” 

Levi rolled his eyes.

“You’re fine, Brat.  Now get up, I want to find out what’s happened to my ship while I was in dreamland.  You guys haven’t crashed it or anything have you?” 

Marco smiled, holding his communicator out to Levi.. 

“I have Armin on the line sir.”

Levi took the offered device.

“Arlet, are you there?”

“Captain!”  Armin sounded excited.  “You’re back.”

“Whoo-hoo.”  Levi drolled.  “Fill me in, what’s the status of my ship?”

Armin proceeded to fill Levi in on the Sasha situation.  While he talked, Levi noticed Marco turning off his tricorder before quickly putting it away.  He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the nurse’s behavior.  Once Armin had caught Eren and Levi up on the situation, there was a pause while Levi thought about the best way to move forward. 

“You did good Arlet, I appreciate you taking care of the ship while we were out.”  He said, “Levi out.”  He flipped the communicator shut, handed it back to Marco and then turned to Eren. 

“Mr. Jaeger, I want you to go directly to the bridge and assist Armin and our pilots.  I’m going to head to sickbay with Nurse Bodt first and then I’ll join you.”

Eren saluted.

“Yessir Captain.”  He strode away towards the lift, leaving Levi and Marco alone.  The nurse turned to head back to sickbay, but the Vulcan stopped him.

“Hand it over.” He said, holding his arm out and gesturing to the tricorder.

“I-I… Ummm.”  Marco sheepishly handed over his device, watching nervously as Levi powered the device on, revealing the pictures that Marco had taken.  He held up his hand to silence Marco’s apologetic babbling.

“Yeah yeah I know you’re real sorry.”  The Captain said, deleting the pictures one by one.  He absolutely did not send one to his personal PADD before handing it back to Marco and brushing by him walking in the direction of sickbay. 

Marco hurried after him, not sure how much trouble he was in.  The Captain was scary.

Back in sickbay, Sasha had lost her cool and was being held down by the combined forces of Jean and Connie.  Marco rushed forward to help, grabbing a sedative on his way over.  Levi watched him and Jean work together to subdue Sasha, both medical personnel completely calm, and thought about how he sometimes forgot how efficient they both were at their jobs. 

Marco released the sedative into the thrashing engineer’s bloodstream and they all waiting for her to relax.  Jean nodded at Levi.

“Hello, Captain.  Would you mind helping us get Sasha over to surgery?”  The Captain nodded, helping Connie to put Sasha’s now limp body onto a stretcher while Jean and Marco went ahead to prep the room.  He watched Connie fuss over his friend, arranging her arms so that she looked comfortable and pushing her hair out of her face.  Connie noticed the Captain watching and quickly retracted his hand.  Levi tried to soften his expression, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded because Connie didn’t look very comforted.  They both wheeled Sasha over to the clean room in the back of sickbay.  Jean and Marco ushered them out of the room, pausing to tell Connie that Sasha would be absolutely fine and there really wasn’t any risk involved with a stomach pumping in the 23rd century. 

Connie looked a little bit better at that news and went to sit down on one of the beds in sickbay to wait out the surgery.  Levi hesitated. 

“I apologize Springer, but I need you down in Engineering right now.  The ship is in a precarious position until we get it functioning properly again and I need my best officers keeping her out of the planet’s atmosphere until then.” 

Connie nodded, standing up and only glancing back at the clean room once before saluting Levi, “Yes sir!” and leaving sickbay. 

“Springer.”  Levi stopped him.  Connie paused by the door, looking back questioningly.

“I will ensure that you are the first informed when Lt. Brauss is out of surgery.”

Connie smiled.  “Thank you sir!” 

Once he had vacated sickbay, Connie rushed down to Engineering to go look after the second love of his life. 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Up on the Bridge, Armin, Ymir, and Christa were struggling to keep the ship up out of the planet’s atmosphere, which was becoming a more difficult task by the second.  Christa and Ymir were scrabbling at the controls shouting out calculations to Armin.  The planet had actually started to collapse in on itself, so the gravitational pull was increasing and required constant attention.  That and the new compressor coils were weren’t robust enough to maintain the bursts of energy put out from the ship, so a new coordinate had to be entered in every few seconds and they were eating up four times as much fuels as they should have needed to. 

Any other ship’s crew would’ve been little fiery bits plummeting to the planet’s surface by now, but luckily Levi’s crew was considered the best for a reason.  It was a delicate battle.  If they overcorrected too much and overtaxed the engine, the faulty compressor coil would burst and then they would be dead fish in the sky.  If they under corrected the ship would dip into the planet’s atmosphere and the Enterprise would start to burn up.  Eren positioned himself next to Christa, keeping the stabilizers in check so the ship didn’t start to tilt. 

Armin was able to calculate the exact gravitational pull of the planet and project the changes in magnitude over time and then calculate the exact force required to counteract the force and stay in orbit.  Ymir and Christa knew the feel of the ship and were able to take Armin’s calculations and adjust them to account for the faulty coil.  They had Connie on the loudspeaker and he was trying to coax some extra power out of the stressed starship. 

Minutes ticked by, and the Bridge crew tensely struggled to keep the precarious balance of their ship from falling apart.  The comm beeped and all three of them jumped.  It was Levi.

“We got the coil, I already contacted Lt. Springer.  Lt. Brause is fine, she tried to get up but I made Kirstein keep her ass in bed.” 

Eren whooped into the comm port and Levi winced. 

“Calm down Jaeger, I’m going down to Engineering to give this thing to Springer myself.  Keep you posted.”  Levi hung up and turned back to Jean, who was holding out the recently cleaned compressor coil to the Captain.  Levi recoiled. 

“Are you a fucking savage Kirstein? I’m not touching that. It was in someone’s stomach.  I don’t care if its _sanitary._ Wrap it the fuck up so I can go.”

Jean resisted rolling his eyes, but quickly wrapped it in a clean towel and handed it over, watching Levi as he snatched it and marched out the door for the umpteenth time that day. 

A few minutes later, Levi reached Connie down in Engineering and gave him the old coils.  Connie gleefully unwrapped the towel, not showing the same aversion to stomach contents as the Captain had.  The chief engineer was about to spring into action when he paused, the smile slipping off of his face.  Levi tensed, watching him.

“What’s wrong Springer?”

Connie said nothing but ran over to the comm port.

“Armin! We have a problem.” 

There was some static coming over the speakers, then Armin spoke.

“Yeah I just realized that too.” 

“What?” Levi’s voice snapped out the question, not liking being ignorant to a situation.  Connie turned back to him.

“Sir, we’re barely just keeping the Enterprise in the air as it is, and in order to switch out the compressor coils, we’ll have to cut off the power.  The ship will sink down too far before we can get the old coil back in.” 

The Captain stared.  “And you didn’t think of this until just now??”

“Well it only takes like a minute to install the coils, less because I’m pretty fast! Normally it wouldn’t be a problem but we can pull up high enough without the other coil exploding.” 

“Hold on.”  Armin spoke up from the bridge.  “We should just purposefully blow out the old compressor coils.” 

Connie looked like Armin had just suggested he kick a baby.

“Purposefully. Blow up.  A part of my ship??” 

“Yes.”  Armin was already clacking away at his keyboard, pulling up new calculations. “If we overtax the engines, we should be able to put out just enough power to keep us coasting out of the atmosphere for a minute or so.  It’ll blow the old coils, true, but it should give you some time with the engine on standby.  If you can switch out the coils in under a minute we should be fine.”

Connie hesitated, looking sadly at his ship.

“Springer!” Levi pulled him to attention. “We don’t have much time.  Under your best judgment, is this plan the most likely for success?”

Connie thought for a minute, then nodded. “This is the only way.  Let’s do it.” 

Armin quickly shouted out settings for Ymir and Christa to prepare to blow out the coil, and Connie got into position with the coil and his equipment.  He would be doing a “hot switch” which meant that the engine wouldn’t be cooled down properly while changing the coils, so he had to wear full heat protection while he was working.  This would slow him down and make it harder to maneuver the parts if something went wrong. 

Levi hovered a good distance away, watching Connie prepare and feeling generally useless.  He had the communicator turned up all of the way in his hand so that Armin and Connie could talk.  Connie nodded at the Captain.

“I’m ready to go sir!”

Back up on the Bridge, Armin took a deep breath.  Ymir laughed.

“It’s now or never, Pipsqueaks. Let’s do this!” 

“On the count of three.” Armin said, and Ymir and Christa nodded in agreement.

“One….”

“Two…”

“Three!” 

Ymir slammed her hand down on the controls, and the ship jerked forward, giving itself a small burst of speed.  Down in engineering, the compartment holding the coil sparked and fizzed.  Connie wrenched it open and was engulfed in a cloud of smoke. 

“Shit.”  Ymir looked at the dash.  “That didn’t give us as much of a boost as I thought.”

Armin paled, looking at the controls. 

“CONNIE YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS” 

The bald engineer cursed and dove into the compartment regardless of the smoke.  Levi couldn’t see a thing as Connie banged around and started throwing chunks of charred metal out from the smoke cloud. 

Armin was counting down frantically, watching the ship’s position in relation to the atmosphere.

“TWENTY FIVE!”

“TWENTY FOUR!”

“TWENTY THREE!”

Connie popped back out of the smoke, grabbing the spare coil and glancing grimly at the Captain.

“A couple of fuses blew, we just have to hope this thing holds.”  He jumped back in.

“TEN!”

“NINE!”

“CONNIE, HURRY THE FUCK UP!”

“SIX!”

“FIVE!”

Connie appeared back out of cubicle, slamming the partition shut.

“IM DONE GO GOGOGO GOO!” 

Ymir flipped some switches and Christa revved the dials all the way up, making the ship roar to life at they pulled away from that goddamn planet.  The five of them held their collective breath for a minute as Armin stared at the screen. 

“We’re safe.”  He said.  “Guys we made it!!” 

Connie screamed happily and looked like he might hug his Captain, but wisely restrained himself.  Ymir, Christa, Eren, and Armin were all shrieking and making a din through the comm. port. 

Levi barely reacted.

“Good job Springer,” he said in his normal bored tone of voice.  “I’m heading back up to the bridge.  Crisis over everyone.” 

 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------                                                                     

A few hours later, Levi was up on the Bridge, going through the roll call with Armin and Jean.  The ship was on its way to a nearby way station to restock on supplies and get more of the compressor coils from their normal manufacturer. 

“Everyone is accounted for!”  The communications officer stated, then paused. “Oh wait, we’re still missing two.” 

“Which officers are missing?” Levi asked.  “Should we start a ship wide search?”

“No…” Armin hesitated, glancing down at his PADD.  “We know exactly where they are.” 

Levi’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Then why haven’t we gone and given them the antidote?”

“It’s Officers Braun and Hoover.”   

Levi made a head movement that indicated _so what?_ And Armin elaborated.

“They both disappeared towards the beginning of the incident and haven’t been seen since.  The security footage shows that they _both_ went into Officer Braun’s quarters and are still there presently.” 

The Captain’s eyes widened in realization.  He smirked.

“Well, _someone_ has to go give them the antidote.”  He looked around the room. “Who pissed me off the most recently?”  His gaze rested on Eren, and the first officer quickly brought his finger up to his nose.

“Nose goes!” He yelled, and one by one everyone put their fingers on their nose until only Levi and Jean were remaining.  Everyone turned to look at Jean, who flinched and backed away.

“I ain’t fucking doing it.”  The room started laughing, and even Levi cracked a smile. 

After another half hour of bickering, a security guard named Annie came up to the bridge to pass off a report to Armin and overheard the conversation. 

Without any explanation she walked over to Jean and grabbed the two hypos out of his hand, saying “I’ll do it.” 

Then Bridge went silent and everyone watched as she stalked out of the room. 

“Uhhh….” Eren scratched his ear awkwardly.  Armin cleared his throat, holding the PADD out to Levi to sign.

“I believe we have everyone accounted for now sir.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” 

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The end!!

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you so much for reading this! I had a ton of fun writing this so I hope you thought it was at least somewhat entertaining! As do most writers, I love comments and suggestions (even critical ones) so let me know what you thought!


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